


Midnight Cowboy (Even Cowboys Get the Blues)

by diefleder_tey



Category: Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:43:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diefleder_tey/pseuds/diefleder_tey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryuhei Maruyama has it all figured out - move to the city, leave grunt work behind - the key to freedom is money and the easiest way to money is sex.  In theory.  It doesn’t take long for the city to turn its back on him and then...then, he meets You Yokoyama...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2011 [**reel_johnny**](http://reel-johnny.livejournal.com) inaugural challenge. The idea of the challenge was to render a movie into fandom - thus, the plot borrows _heavily_ from Midnight Cowboy (but you don't need to have seen the film to follow it - you just need to know it took place around 1969 and that I kept that particular time setting).
> 
>  
> 
>  **Warnings:** This is really important!!! I chose not to use the Ao3 warnings because they don't really suit this story. However, you need to know that there are several sexual situations (glossed over and one somewhat involving a minor); violence; strong language; and overall mature themes. I will not give more specific (and potentially spoilery) warnings - but be aware that the original movie could be really heartbreaking at times and that I tried to stay as faithful to that tone as possible.

  
He felt like a fish caught in a stream of bodies and eyes as people rushed by him in both directions - their gazes lifting from the sidewalk only momentarily to notice he was standing there and adjust their paths to avoid running into him. He stood out completely, standing tall and smiling, not long off of the bus in his outsider attire, with hunched city inhabitants flowing around him in a rush to who knew what. That was fine by him. Even if they weren’t acknowledging him for long, at least they knew he existed. Anonymous, unimportant, but existent. And for each brief glance as they bustled toward him, another possibility. Everyone looked like an answer in that moment.

And as soon as they passed him by, continuing on in the stream, it was obvious they weren’t. It had seemed like the easiest plan in the world to him: do A, A leads to B, B leads to money. He had been lying on his back at night in an empty parking lot back home, staring up at the stars, when everything hatched in his mind. He couldn’t believe his luck and why more people hadn’t figured it out before. But now, now in the biggest city he could get to, that first step seemed so much more difficult in practice. How hard was it to find a lonely girl with money in such a big city?

At least another 300 people passed him before he saw her - clearly well off and wearing more than the Autumn weather called for. She was the kind of woman whose hairdo probably cost entirely too much, covering expensive earrings and long enough to frame the fur lining on the collar of her coat and the chain on her large, shining necklace. The kind not afraid to keep her head raised thanks to the giant sunglasses covering her face. A walking billboard testament to her own worth. He assumed that meant money, anyway - none of the women back home quite looked liked that.

She made the mistake of pausing to look down to check the condition of the heel of her left shoe. He seized the opportunity and stepped into her lane of traffic, meeting her halfway with a pleasant smile and a pleasant tone of voice.

“Excuse me,” he said, getting her attention. It worked. But then what... “Could you tell me where the bus stop is?”

She smiled. “You’re at it.” She walked around him and kept going.

“Oh yeah,” he said, deflated for just a moment before he decided to follow her out of the rush of people around the stop. “Oh, no, I’m sorry,” he said, quickly catching up to her. “I didn’t mean that stop.”

She kept walking but glanced back at him.

“I was looking for another bus stop,” he explained. “I’m not from around here-”

“I can tell.”

She glanced back again, smiling still. That was more than enough attention to keep him going. “I guess so,” he laughed. Between the way he spoke, the clothes, how obviously lost he was, it now seemed like the stupidest thing to say - a good follow up to asking about the bus stop. “I just-”

“Are you trying to get out of here in a hurry?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said, closing the gap between them a little more. “I just got here.”

“Oh,” she answered. “Somewhere you need to be?”

“No, I-” He fumbled with a reason; lying wasn’t his strong suit.

She suddenly stopped in front of him. They had turned down a street where everything was more wide-open, no longer jammed with lanes of people. There were a few trees somehow growing out of designated squares in the sidewalk and buildings started to come with doormen. She turned around to look at him for a moment, not pressing for any more information.

He gave some anyway, holding out his hand. “My name’s Ryuhei Maruyama.”

“I don’t care,” she answered, not moving. But then, the smile again. “Do you want to come upstairs?”

Finally.

Before he had time to self-congratulate on a job well done and reaffirm his new life plan, they were in her apartment, which was as stylish and trendy - or garish and ineffectual, depending on the point of view - as she was. Catalog-showroom chic, for sure. It reflected her attire in every way.

She immediately sat down on the bed and picked up her phone, pulling down the dial on the rotary phone one by one and taking her clothes off just the same. He stood at the end of the bed and shifted his weight and his glance, back and forth. It was only right to admire the decor of her home as he waited patiently; it was only reasonable to watch as she slowly but purposefully undid each button on her blouse with her right hand, her left holding the phone to her ear.

“Do you still want me to meet you there?” she asked, pulling the blouse off. Once her hand was free, she looked at him and made a gesture for him to hurry up.

His hat was already on the floor - boots off, jacket gone. He started working on the snaps of his own western plaid shirt - quick, purposeful pops compared to the delicacy she had used. He pulled his wife beater up from the tail, turning it inside out as it came up over his broad shoulders, his head. He stopped for a minute with it in his hands, looking over at the mirror on her vanity near the bed. His hair was a little longer now; body a little more impressive. He felt like he was finally settling into his face.

“No, that’s fine,” she said, now working on her bra. Everything she took off was neatly folded and placed at the side of the bed.

He just dropped his shirt onto the pile on the floor. He pulled open the buckle on his belt and slid his jeans off.

“Hm. Not bad,” she said, paying attention to him again, lying back on the bed in just her underwear and the phone still pressed to her ear. “It’ll do.”

Yeah. That’s what he thought too.

“What? I was saying that’ll work, dear,” she continued. She motioned for him to come up on the bed and even as he started to kiss her chin and neck, she kept up a stream of dutiful answers.

He paused briefly to consider whether or not he could charge extra for accommodating a phone call at the same time, but ultimately it was what the client wanted - his first client. Maybe that deserved some sort of discount in celebration. The entire concept of having “clientele” caused him to flash back to the warm summer feeling from when he first started to think about leaving his hometown. To when the first inkling he had to once and for all stop with the dead end jobs - the only kind he could get - blossomed; the mounting tension as the notion became more attainable and pressing with each dish he washed in the diner where he was last employed. He continued to caress her bare skin, a little embarrassed at the rough, dry abrasiveness of his hands from too much washing, too much meaningless work for nothing.

But women liked men rugged, right? He thought so. He stood out in a city full of hunched people, standing tall and different - obviously they did.

It was a little weird to him to recall the summer heat when he was supposed to be enjoying the heat from her skin, but he guessed that couldn’t be helped. Probably a little homesick. He had never really ventured far from home before and he had just spent the last three or four days on a bus getting there. What there was to be homesick about, he wasn’t sure. If he had a family somewhere, they had long moved on without him - the only person he had known as a kid was his loving, now-deceased grandmother.

“That feels good,” she said, very quietly, holding the phone away from her mouth for a second. “Okay, yes dear. Yes.”

 _That feels good._ His grandmother used to say that too when he was little and he’d massage her worn out shoulders.

He missed her. And sometimes he missed the only girl he had ever loved, too. Not often, though. He loved her and she loved him back, but she loved a lot of other people too. Still, sometimes he could feel that warmth, long removed, pulled out of his grasp by too many to count. Last he heard, she wasn’t doing too well with the jealousies of several men.

“I need to shower,” the client said, saying her goodbyes and finally hanging up the phone. She backed him up enough to work off her own panties. She cleared her throat, a little dry from the stream of agreement, and said, “Here.” What earlier had seemed like a delicate nature was really a deliberate one - born out of efficient boredom, fully revealed as she took control.

It really had been the simplest of ideas - the oldest idea. Ryuhei had all of these things in his head - and none of them - as he gladly complied. She was the client.

She was the client.

She was...

Thoughts started slipping away. All but one: maybe later he’d think about the meaning and intention of each, whether or not it indicated that he was doing his new job right, but for now, every groan, grunt and gasp that came out of fucking sounded like money - like freedom. Real freedom.

Afterward, she didn’t linger in bed long. She was in her closet, picking through dresses, and muttering to herself about the next item on her to do list.

He slowly followed suit, finding pieces of his clothing here and there. As he sat on the bed, re-snapping his shirt, watching her, he asked, “What’s your name?”

She stopped briefly to snort. “Please.” She pulled out a tube of a black dress. “You should probably go - I’ve got to meet up with my husband across town in an hour.”

“Right,” he said, smiling, pulling on one boot. He wasn’t sure what to say next. At the diner they shouted, _Come back soon!_ but that didn’t seem quite appropriate. Nor did _Have a nice day, Thank you for your business_ or _If you could fill out this survey rating the service you received_... He had just sort of assumed that the money part was automatic.

Ryuhei stood up, pulling his jeans a little bit higher to tighten his belt, and just went for the heart of the matter. “That’ll be $20.”

She dropped the dress. And turned to face him with eyes wide with rage. “Excuse me?”

“For...for the,” he started, uselessly pointing to her bed.

“What kind of a woman do you take me for?” she yelled at him, picking up the dress off of the floor and throwing it at his face. “Do you think I’m cheap? That I’m desperate? That I’m some sort of whore? I have integrity, you piece of shit.”

He started to stammer.

“You piece of shit,” she repeated. “You have the nerve to ask something like that.”

“No,” he blurted out.

“I don’t even have enough for cab fare to get to my husband and you want me to pay you money, for what?” she yelled, grabbing tissues off of the vanity on her way to the bed.

“No, no I don’t, I don’t at all,” he stammered. He opened up his wallet and quickly pulled out the first bill he could find. “I was saying, I meant-” He thrust the bill at her.

It was $10.

She broke out in sobs and threw a pillow at his face.

“No,” he said, “I didn’t mean that either, I grabbed the wrong-”

“You use me and then treat me like cheap trash,” she bawled out. “That’s all I’m worth?!”

“No, no, here,” he said, pulling out enough for $50 total. He took her hand and shoved it in with her wadded up tissue. “That’s enough for a cab, right? I just wanted to leave enough for a cab since you were-”

“Get out of here,” she spat at him, her bottom jaw and neck clenched and threatening, her mascara starting to run, making her look like some sort of beast. The rest of her words were loud, snot-filled cries of outrage.

He jumped up, only too happy to obey, running toward the door and grabbing his hat off of the floor on his way.

And as Ryuhei closed the door to her apartment, the minute the knob clicked back into its resting position, he heard the sobs abruptly stop. Complete silence.

His first job there...and he was out 50 bucks.

Well, nothing ever started smoothly.

He didn’t have anything with him, not a suitcase or a small bag - just the new clothes he'd bought back home and all of the remaining money he was able to get out of his job at the diner. He assumed he’d make enough the first month to get new stuff - better stuff - quality items for the urban climate. And while losing money wasn’t ideal, he still felt pretty pleased over the fact that he had been able to find a customer, sort of, the first day out. That was a good sign.

He walked for some time on the streets - nothing in her neighborhood would be in his price range - until he came to a part of town where the buildings looked shaggy and old enough to be reasonably cheap without also being a health hazard. He went into the first hotel he saw, a beige looking tower that was taller than wide, and paid for the first week in cash.

Before the attendant could hand him a key, he pulled a postcard of the hotel out of one of their lobby racks. “How much?” he asked with a smile.

Ryuhei took the pen off of the guestbook, counted up the windows on the picture and circled what he thought was his floor, the 12th. Next to it he wrote, _I am here._

After he settled into his room, he looked at the postcard again and tossed it into the trash bin. He rushed downstairs, backtracked an hour’s worth of walking until he was back in the nicer neighborhoods and at a much nicer hotel, buying a much nicer postcard of some place he couldn’t afford for even one night just yet.

He found the 12th floor on the picture, borrowed a pen and with a smile on his face, circled a window. He wrote next to it, _I will be here._

He had no one to mail it to.

  


***

  
A week and a half later, though, his track record hadn’t improved beyond 0 - 1. At first he felt a little gun-shy about lonely wives charging in his direction on the street. After a couple of days of being ignored, he realized his strategy was all wrong. Standing around in the busiest streets was pointless.

But then, standing around in areas with less traffic didn’t change his luck either.

Trying to strike up conversations really didn’t work.

And spending an entire day in his hotel room...couldn’t more clients just fall into his lap and this time maybe not take his money in the process?

Somehow, people were out there looking for exactly what he wanted to offer, but if there was a way to advertise effectively without getting arrested, he didn’t know it. There had to be some street, some place to hang out, some way short of wearing a giant sign. He figured that if he stuck around long enough, he’d find out. The problem was that he could only afford to keep his room for a couple of more days and that was it. The hotel manager must have known, must have dealt with enough people to smell that money was running short - he had been sure to ask that day if Ryuhei would be staying next week too as he crossed the lobby to the front door.

Sure, yeah. Just as soon as he unlocked the mystery of getting paid without having to point blank say, “Hi, would you like to give me money to have sex with you?”

As he walked down a new street, tall and shoulders straight, quickly reading the signs in the windows of each store, he wondered if maybe that _was_ the right way to go about it. It wouldn’t hurt to try right?

He stopped in front of a hole-in-the-wall kind of place - he would have never known they served food if the door wasn’t open with the smell wafting out - and resolved to ask the first girl who came his way. One popped up instantly. Then another. And a third.

All three walked by without a word from him. It was hard to speak on an empty stomach.

Two more and the only noise he uttered was the gurgling of hunger, induced by the lingering scent of greasy meat and rewarmed coffee. Before he could ask the next girl if she had a spare sandwich, he ducked into the little diner and found an empty stool at the counter. In his first week he had planned out meals like they were still part of normal life; after the second week started dry, he switched to a contingency of skipping food now and again. Just until things worked out.

“What’ll you have?” the guy behind the counter asked.

“Do you have pie?”

“Yeah - what kind?”

“Anything’s good,” Ryuhei answered, trying to bite down his mixed smile of embarrassment and joyful anticipation. It was an act of self pity. It had been a hard week - he deserved it.

And it was out quicker than he could have asked for, which made him all too eager to gratefully pay the bill. He raised slightly on his stool to pull his wallet out of his back pocket and thumb through, looking for the right amount of cash. There wasn’t much there to begin with, and the thought of parting with anything muted his enthusiasm until he finally handed over his last $5 with a pained sort of smile.

Once the change came back, he felt a tap on his left shoulder. Next to him was a guy in dark, dingy clothes, definitely looking worse for wear, pale and hunched over on the counter. Ryuhei hadn’t noticed him when he sat down, but then again, he had been focused on a single thought. “Gotta light?” the guy asked, cigarette stuck between his puffed out, thick lips.

“Sorry,” Ryuhei replied, “I don’t smoke.”

“That’s-”

“Would you look at this.” Before the guy hunched next to him could finish his sentence, someone new butted into the conversation. The new guy had a feather boa wrapped around his neck, green feathers that made his eyes seem a little more piercing. Or maybe it was his smug smile. “What are you, some sort of cowboy?”

“Huh?” Ryuhei answered, spoonful of pie in his mouth.

The new guy poked at his shoulder, flicked at his hat. “Huh. Huh? That’s your answer? I haven’t seen you around here before, new?”

“Yeah.”

He leaned over further, resting his weight on Ryuhei’s shoulder. “Well then, Cowboy, how about I show you around?”

“That’s okay,” Ryuhei answered, politely smiling around the spoon still in his mouth. His expression changed for a moment as a thought came rushing in. “Wait, how much would you give me for that?”

The guy leaned back. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” He changed his focus when he heard laughing behind him - the hunched man next to them unable, or unwilling, to muffle his cackling at the situation. “Oh look,” he said, stepping back to glare. “Someone forgot to clean up the rat shit in this place. It’s You.” He didn’t wait for a rebuttal. “I’m shocked people still let you in their doors, _You_. Did someone have to drag you in here?”

“Why don’t you try ripping someone else off, huh?” the hunched guy asked, his laughter now died down.

“Oh. Oh, I see,” the other commented. He looked back at Ryuhei. “You already wiped his nose on ya, huh?”

“Me?” Ryuhei asked.

The other guy tipped his head to the counter, “You. Y-O-U, that’s his name.”

“No, it’s not,” the hunched man replied, “that’s just what the jackasses around here call me.”

“And everywhere else. Let me tell you something,” the guy with the boa said, leaning toward Ryuhei and lowering his voice, “if you’re hanging out with him, you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

“Hey,” the hunched guy said. He paused to make sure he had their attention and then looked up, with a cough, and asked, “Gotta light?”

“Fuck you,” the other man said, walking toward the door.

“Call my secretary and see if she can fit you in,” the hunched guy shouted back in an even tone - no anger, just volume - pocketing the unlit cigarette. “My schedule’s very busy.”

Ryuhei looked at him for a moment, finally pulling the spoon out of his mouth. “So what is it?”

“That guy’s a jerk,” he muttered. “What?”

“What is your name?” Ryuhei asked again.

“Kimitaka Yokoyama,” he paused, “but no one calls me by my first name.”

“Oh, You Yokoyama?”

“No,” Yokoyama started. He gave up. “You weren’t serious, were you? ‘How much?’ What are you, some kind of whore?”

“Actually...”

“Oh,” Yokoyama replied. “Oh. You must be doing well, then.”

“Yeah, really well,” he said. It didn’t sound particularly convincing, not even to himself, and he could only hold onto the fantasy for a few seconds before the truth burst through. “Terrible - really terrible. It should be easy right? But...” He cringed in embarrassment. “I’ve almost been here for two weeks and nothing.”

Yokoyama turned his head to cough and then asked, “Who are you under?”

“Under?”

He smirked. “There’s your problem. You can’t just walk into someone else’s territory without management, you know?”

“Oh,” Ryuhei said, digging his spoon back into the remains of the pie. “That makes sense, I guess.”

“Look, I know someone who can help you out,” Yokoyama answered, lowering his voice. “He’ll keep you busy and doesn’t ask for that big of a cut.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he lives around here,” he replied, glancing at his watch. “I could take you to see him right now, he should be at home.”

Ryuhei finished off the last part of the pie in two scoops and, between bits of what might have been blueberries, eagerly stood up. “Let’s go, then!”

“Yeah, sure.” Yokoyama agreed, pulling his own wallet out. “Oh...” He looked through it once, again, tried not to seem embarrassed. “I forgot to put my money in my wallet this morning,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.

“No problem.” Ryuhei pulled out what Yokoyama owed and set it on the counter next to his leftover coffee.

“You don’t mind?”

“You’re going to change my luck,” he replied. “Fair trade.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Ryuhei.”

He followed Yokoyama out of the diner and back into the street, where the wind had picked up, causing him to pull his jacket closer to his neck. It didn’t take him long to notice the obvious. Yokoyama had assured him that the solution to all of his problems only lived a few blocks away, a five minute walk. It was going to take a lot longer than five minutes.

The best Ryuhei could describe it, Yokoyama seemed like a self-confident bag of insecurities. At first glance, the guy seemed kind of paranoid, with his eyes darting around. He should have been taller than Ryuhei, but he was hunched up from the cold under a thin, black coat. And then there was the leg. Something about his right leg was messed up - it didn’t line up right, the foot turned in too much. It was hard to get a good look in motion, but it was in motion that anyone could see that it caused Yokoyama to limp along, hobble without choice. His eyes looked tired and his hair was kind of greasy and he was so pale. What a sad mess of a man walking down the street with his foot dragging slightly behind.

But if that’s all anyone saw when they looked at Yokoyama, they didn’t look close enough. The hindrance in his gait didn’t take away the purposefulness with which he walked. If he was supposed to be at a disadvantage, someone forgot to tell him. And those city-swallowed watchful eyes were focused, matching the determination set in the rest of his features. They didn’t just look at things, they saw - this Ryuhei was sure of. He had seen so many pairs of eyes in the past two weeks; he could tell the difference.

“Is that why you’re wearing that?” Yokoyama asked, breaking his train of thought. “Those clothes?” There was a slight snicker in his voice.

Ryuhei stopped rubbing at the bottom of his eye and looked down at his shirt, his jacket. “I like my clothes,” he replied. “Besides, they make me stand out.”

“Why would you want to?”

He grinned, with a slight grimace. He couldn’t help it - wounded pride always came out with a squint-filled smile. “It helps with the job.”

“How’s that working for you?”

Ryuhei quickened his pace slightly.

“Your walk’s kind of funny, too.”

He sped up more. “Should I walk like you, then?” he asked, wishing he could take it back before he even finished the last word. It wasn’t going to get him anywhere to bristle at helpful advice and it really wasn’t going to help to insult his guide. He looked back to see Yokoyama still moving at a steady pace, a good distance behind him. He stopped and waited for the other to catch up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah, you should,” Yokoyama said, passing him. “You _should_ walk like me. There it is.”

Ryuhei looked at the building across the street - a high-rise run-down sculpture of the finest cheap construction a city could afford. It wasn’t what he had in mind. Then again, he reminded himself as they crossed the street and entered the lobby, appearances could be deceiving.

“He’s on the 12th floor, 1223A,” Yokoyama told him, hitting the right button as they walked in to the elevator. “It’s off to the left...yeah, the left I think. Just knock on the door and tell him you know me.”

“You’re going to stay in here?”

Yokoyama pulled the cigarette from earlier out of his pocket, coughing and nervously fingering it. “You can’t smoke in the building,” he answered. “I was going to go wait back outside - you don't mind if I-?”

“No, go ahead,” Ryuhei answered.

“It’s easy to find, 1223A. Just knock on the door.” The elevator chimed and bounced into its position at the 12th floor. As the doors started to slide open, Yokoyama pulled back on Ryuhei’s jacket at the elbow. “Better give me the landlord’s bribe.”

“What?”

Yokoyama looked at him straight on. “You gotta bribe the landlord,” he explained. “This isn’t exactly legal, you know? If you slip him a $20 he doesn’t care which floor you stop on.”

Ryuhei nodded, pulling out his wallet.

“I’ll take care of it before I find a light,” Yokoyama said, jabbing the lobby button the second the cash was in hand. “1223A.”

“1223A,” Ryuhei repeated, the image of Yokoyama getting squeezed out between the closing doors. “See you in a bit.”

The hallway smelled like whatever was cooking in half of the apartments, which was good because it detracted from what the yellowing wallpaper and discolored carpet should have smelled like. 1223A - it was almost all the way at the end of the hall - and off to the left, just like he said.

Ryuhei took a deep breath, smiled widely and knocked on the door. At the turn of the doorknob, he started in with, “Hi, I was sent by Y-”

At first he thought maybe he had accidentally read the wrong number or mixed up doors. What stared back was not a “him,” but a short, squat woman of some ethnicity that he couldn’t even begin to identify. He briefly wondered if maybe she was some secretary - a secretary in house shoes and a robe and her hair half up. Or a wife?

While he was still trying to process what was behind door number 1223A, she immediately seized upon him, crying out in her language with speed and urgency. She clutched at his shirt, gripping it with pulsations that weakened and strengthened to match her tears.

“I’m sorry, I was sent by Y-,” he tried to repeat. He took a step back and she came with him, speeding up her pleas. He tried to work his shirt free from her grasp. “I’m sorry, I thought-”

She suddenly paused, silent momentarily, when something back in the apartment caught her attention - the shrill outburst of an infant crying. The wailing of the child caused her to speak even faster and press herself closer to him - one hand still clinging to his shirt.

...the other held out, the palm open and facing up.

He didn’t understand anything she said, but he spoke that language fluently. “Here,” he replied in a panic, pulling out his wallet for a third time in an hour. He jammed one of the last two significant bills he had into her hand.

She let go to accept it and thank him. The minute she uncurled her fingers, he stumbled backwards, turning to jog the rest of the way down the hall. He didn’t even bother with the elevator, going straight to the stairwell and rushing all the way down to the lobby.

“Hey, I think you gave me the wrong-”

The empty lobby.

Ryuhei walked outside, feeling dumb for a moment - that’s right, no smoking indoors.

Or outdoors, apparently. Yokoyama wasn’t in front of the building. After a quick scan, he wasn’t across the street, either.

Ryuhei ran down the end of the block, looking for the back of a rat limping away. When he couldn’t find anything at one end, he turned around and ran down the other side. Running made his blood pump; the thought of Yokoyama made it boil. He could see that face in his mind with a smirk, the same kind of smile as the jerk from the diner. He could see Yokoyama’s smirking face float further and further away as he waved goodbye, Ryuhei’s money in his hand.

At the other end of the block, nothing. No sign of him. By the time he walked back to the building that was supposed to have changed his life, he could picture the smirk fading off of Yokoyama’s face as Ryuhei’s fingers clasped around his neck and began to tighten down, satisfactorily squeezing against the muscle. His fingers twitched, desperate to feel that dream come true.

“Hey,” he finally bust out, in pure frustration. “Hey...YOU!”

A few passersby turned their heads briefly. In embarrassment, Ryuhei nodded and quickly moved away. Walking the blocks healed him - they took away the rapid heartbeat, drained the red from his face, gave him air back into his lungs. His fingers relaxed and instead of the unfamiliar anger, he started to feel disappointed - less rage at a swindler and more guilt at being swindled. Again.

Sort of. On the seventh block he thought about the woman in apartment 1223A. It was hard to feel any anger thinking back on her desperate grip and pleading face. She obviously needed the help.

Ryuhei shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, wondering briefly if Yokoyama had sent him to her on purpose.

  


***

  
“Guess you’ll be moving on this weekend. That’s a shame, it was nice having you here.”

The words were nice, but the tone lacked sincerity. He figured that the manager probably did enjoy his business, but the dryness spelled out a hard truth: no money, no room.

Ryuhei nodded, that squinted smile out again. He wanted to reply with a suave, “We’ll see,” but desperation kept him in check. At this point, he was stuck - he didn’t have enough to get a bus ticket home, not that crawling back would have done him any good. He didn’t have enough to stay in the city. He didn’t even really have enough to eat the rest of the week. And when the last cent was gone, what then? Maybe someone would hire him...right - travel across the country and change everything in his life just to end up a dishwasher in a dirtier town.

It was a shame. Ryuhei really liked staying there too.

So he found himself out on the street again, covering pavement in a bid to save his already dead future. A couple of nights he had stood outside some of the porno theaters. They were bright, flashy, easy to find. He figured it was obvious - anyone there probably wasn’t against the idea of paying for sex. If he had been on the other side of the business, it would have been the first place he checked. It only seemed sensible.

Those nights had all been busts, but he reasoned that it was his last best shot.

So he stood in advertisement under the marquee - full on jeans, hat, boots - while it promised triple Xs and cheap prices. The slop of neon lights from the theater colored his skin in the otherwise thick of night - his own personal sign announcing adult entertainment. Three weeks ago he walked around open chested, now he had to resist the urge to hold his shoulder and broadcast the sudden growing shyness. He tried to keep his stance confident, patient, but as time clicked away, it required more and more effort.

Guy after guy came to the theater - it wasn’t what he had planned on. He started to consider it, consider the idea that ultimately gender didn’t matter - and that’s when she walked up next to him and cocked her head.

Her blonde curly hair framed the bottom of the large hat she had on and she had a lit cigarette between her fingers that never saw her mouth before it was stomped out on the sidewalk by her wedge heel. Her eyes were big - enveloping and reflecting the pool of neon light. Big eyes and even bigger lips, candy coated color and wet with lip gloss. She was there.

“Who you waiting for?” she asked.

Ryuhei chewed on his lower lip a little, exposing the mole underneath on the right side, trying to seem nonchalant. “No one,” he shrugged.

She smiled. “Really.”

She walked to the ticket booth and he followed, paying for the admission of two, resisting the urge to look pathetically at the lone $10 left at his disposal. That was going to change. It was a good thing they weren’t at a regular theater - the smell of popcorn and other food would have killed him. That was going to change too.

Men were scattered throughout - each had his own row, seats picked on a whim, though most seemed to favor the ends and corners. Ryuhei found a row in the middle, with seats in the middle - and strangely being in the exact middle seemed like the most secluded place to be. He wasn’t interested in other people’s activities and he really wasn’t interested in them knowing about his. The lights were already low and soon completely off as the girl took a seat and quickly dragged him down to the one on her left.

Ryuhei sat back and kept his eyes on the screen as it lit up and started flickering with images.

She wasn’t going to wait. With a quick look around, she slid her left hand into his crotch, fingers tracing down the fly. She then cupped her hand, grabbing around clumsily and squeezing, like checking produce.

When he looked over at her, trying not to show his concern, he saw that she wasn’t looking back. Her big eyes were pointed away and at the floor. And for that matter, her bigger lips seemed smaller as she sucked them in. In the light of the movie, she looked different. Outside she was bathed in neon, mostly reds and yellows. Here, she was blanched out in grey and blue flickers. Something about her now made the pit of his stomach knot up, but he unzipped his fly, maneuvering around her massaging hand, anyway.

She finally looked up, those big eyes wide - and that bottom lip pouting in second thought and then down as she opened her mouth. The scene changed in the movie, her face went dark. It changed again and her face was in his lap as she slid off of her chair and leaned forward.

The next thing he knew, he was in the bathroom holding her purse and somewhat holding her hair back, occasionally patting her on the shoulder as everything she had eaten and then some came scratching back up out of her stomach and into the toilet.

She coughed a couple of times, wheezed, trying to catch her breath. “I-I’m,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

She turned to look at him and came face to face with the fly of his jeans. She quickly turned back to throw up again.

This time Ryuhei left the stall to grab some paper towel; he handed it to her as she sheepishly came out to the sound of flushing. He turned on the faucet. “It’s okay,” he repeated.

She wiped her mouth with the towels and walked to the sink. “I’m really sorry,” she said again, “I’ve never done th-”

“Something at dinner must have been bad, right?” he interrupted, smiling gently.

The bathroom glowed with typical fluorescent lighting, much brighter and unforgiving than the marquee or the theater lights. As he watched her nod slightly and lean down to cup water into her mouth, the knots in his stomach gave way, dropped and sunk - kind of like the feel of coming off of the apex of a roller coaster. “How...old are you?” he asked.

She turned off the water and wiped her mouth again, this time with her hand. “...18.”

He cringed, rubbing the side of his neck.

“17,” she confessed.

“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing his face.

“Next month.”

He started rubbing his eyes with a deep exhale. If he had had anything to throw up, he would have engaged in a sequel to her vomiting. After a moment, he handed her the purse. “You should go home.”

“Oh,” she said, unzipping the top of it, “how much do I-?”

“No, it’s okay, you don’t-”

“No, I can pay,” she insisted. “Is...$5 alright?”

He ushered her to the door, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” If she never mentioned this to anyone, that would be payment enough for him. Not going to jail would be payment enough.

She paused before walking out and the thought crossed his mind that she was going to say that $5 wouldn’t get her home - could she trouble him for cab fare? He even started to reach for his wallet to pull out the last $10, to just hand it to her and tell her to please go.

“Thanks,” she said instead. She looked grateful as she nodded and left the bathroom.

Ryuhei sunk down into a crouch, the smallest he could make himself, running his fingers through his hair. He was sure he looked stunned and if anyone walked in and saw, that was fine. After a few deep breaths, he was able to stand up again. He leaned back against the wall and before pushing off to leave, he gave a small, soft snort of a laugh. At least he didn’t have to pay this time.

Well, he had shelled out for admission. But in light of the rest of his track record, just paying admission seemed like a step up.

  


***

  
The next day he lost access to his hotel room.

At first, he just wandered the city, aimlessly walking around to pass time. _What else am I supposed to do_ , he defensively told himself. His thoughts became more focused when the sun started to dip down below the buildings in the horizon: where to next? A park? People slept in parks. And so he headed toward the only park he had seen during his short time in the city.

Ryuhei stopped at a crosswalk, the light telling him to do so, puffing out his cheeks before releasing the air in a sigh. One night. One night in a park, it wouldn’t be that bad. It was a little warmer that day - best kind of night to spend in a park.

He really missed the bed in the hotel already.

His eyes started to drift away from the commanding orange words on the traffic signal, down to the store on the corner, the people waiting on the other side. There, shuffling up to the crosswalk was a familiar rat - pale, with shifty eyes in a dingy black coat, his bad leg dragging slightly behind.

“Yokoyama.” The signal hadn’t changed.

Yokoyama moved behind a guy, some guy whose attention was off elsewhere and his gaze up in the sky. Ryuhei watched as the rat positioned himself behind the man, glancing at fuller pockets while keeping his own hands shoved inside of his coat.

The orange "Don't Walk" was still there.

Yokoyama glanced at the signal too and must have gotten the feeling that someone was watching him. At first he checked over his shoulders and then with furrowed eyebrows looked across the street where he met eyes with Ryuhei.

Ryuhei smiled at him; the signal didn’t change.

Yokoyama’s eyes grew wider and he mouthed some sort of curse word, backing up and pushing people to stand in his wake as he made a break for it around the corner.

The orange words blinked into white and Ryuhei was off, not even bothering to check to see if any late cars were plowing through the red light.

It didn’t take him long to catch up with Yokoyama and when he did, he kind of felt sorry for the guy, trying to run away from a former track kid on a rebellious leg. Yokoyama had to put forth twice the effort to run half the distance and it took a toll on his lungs. By the time Ryuhei walked up to him, he was in mid-coughing fit.

Yokoyama nodded in acknowledgment and, while still coughing, pushed his back up against the nearest building and held up his hands. “Okay,” he choked out, cringing, “go ahead.”

When nothing happened, he peeked open an eye and immediately went from cringing to impatience. “Go ahead!”

Ryuhei held out his hand, palm up.

“What?”

“I think,” he replied, “you owe me some money.”

Yokoyama smiled. “Do I look like I have money?”

“But, you...you took-”

“It’s gone,” he answered.

“Oh.” Ryuhei dropped his hand and pulled back. He probably should have expected that - probably already knew it deep down.

“Are you going to punch me?” Yokoyama asked.

Yes. Yes. “No,” he answered, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the building next to Yokoyama.

“You sure? Or are you just saying that because you’re thinking of something worse to do to me?”

Ryuhei laughed a little, quietly.

“Sounds pretty bad,” he muttered.

“You’ve lived here a long time, right?”

“Yeah,” Yokoyama replied.

“Which park’s the best?” he said.

“Park?”

“I have to find a place to stay tonight,” he explained. “I was kicked out of my room this morning so I can’t really go back there.”

This time Yokoyama laughed, but without the gentleness, the quiet. It was obnoxious enough to make Ryuhei reconsider his early decision to let bygones be bygones.

“If that’s what you’re worried about, then it’s not really a problem,” Yokoyama replied.

“Thanks,” Ryuhei said, bitterness creeping into his voice.

“You can stay with me,” he finished. “I owe you, right?”

“Yeah.” He pushed off of the building, looking the other in the eyes. It didn’t seem like the smartest move to follow someone who had ripped you off into his den. But what more could he do? Yokoyama had a half-smile that was disarming and seemingly genuine. At worst, he’d be back to the park and maybe completely broke, but at best, Yokoyama really meant to help him. “Okay.”

They started down the sidewalk, together, much like the last time they met - though Yokoyama walked with a little less urgency and Ryuhei a little more out of his own head. Through a series of continually dirtier and lonelier streets, Yokoyama kept turning his head to cough every few blocks.

“You probably shouldn’t smoke,” Ryuhei finally advised him.

“I don’t. Haven’t for years.”

And on the emptiest of streets, Yokoyama finally turned into a building, stepping over trash and abandoned junk to reach the staircase inside.

“But,” Ryuhei started.

“What? The rent’s great.” Yokoyama took one step at a time, keeping a steady pace.

“Rent? Isn’t this place condemned?”

“Yeah.”

“Then...you can’t live here.”

“Don’t worry,” he replied, “they won’t knock it down anytime soon.”

“That’s not really the issue,” Ryuhei answered, quietly.

“The entire street’s condemned, but they’re not going to rip down anything over here,” Yokoyama continued, not stopping to look at the other as he spoke. They were up the first flight of stairs, approaching the second. “They’re not going to take down a building unless somebody’s interested in buying the lot and nobody wants to buy a lot on a street full of condemned buildings. They can’t make any money off of it. And the construction guys only go where there’s money.” He paused until they got to the third flight. “Trust me, I used to work construction.”

Ryuhei glanced at the busted leg, reflexively.

“By the way,” Yokoyama finished, turning around and leaning in, “the bathroom’s on the first floor.”

“The bathroom’s on the first floor?”

He scoffed. “You’re not taking a leak in my place.”

On the third floor, Yokoyama opened the second door, revealing his home. It was a little too dark for Ryuhei to tell much, but he could at least make out a set of table and chairs near what looked like a defunct stove and an unplugged mini-fridge. In the main room there were a couple of chairs - one with the springs popping out - an old bed, a cot and a door to what should have been the bathroom.

Yokoyama came up behind him with a lit candle before he could peek into the other room. “There are a couple around but I don’t want to use them up too much, okay? You can have the cot.”

Ryuhei obligingly sat down on it, impressed at its condition. “How did you get all this stuff up here?”

No answer.

“Did you bring it up yourself?”

No answer.

“Have you been here long?”

Yokoyama walked back to him, the light of the candle framing the annoyance on his face. “Are you going to be this obnoxious all night long?”

“N-no.”

“Good,” Yokoyama answered, putting the candle down on the small table by the cot and finishing with, “you can go to bed whenever you want,” before walking away.

Ryuhei just nodded. He was tired - too much walking around on no fuel. He pulled off each boot and set them next to the cot. There wasn’t a pillow, so he took off his jacket and wadded it up. With a quick blow on the candle, his part of the room went dark and he placed his hat over on the table before lying down. Yokoyama’s bed was at the other end of the room, next to a window, hidden behind the “kitchen’s” furniture, and he could hear Yokoyama shuffling toward it in the dark.

He exhaled and it didn’t take long before the support of the cot put him to sleep.

In his dreams he was back home. No more cold Autumn chill, no more bone-breaking concrete walks, no more swarms of people just walking by. But even in his dream he knew something about it was wrong. It was hotter there, but it hadn’t been a warm place, really. And hard ground and dust was just as bad as concrete. People may have not swarmed by, but they ignored him just the same.

He was standing in the empty parking lot - the place he often went to think. It belonged to a defunct drive-in theater he used to go to with his grandmother when he was younger. Most summers they’d go several times a month, forgetting about shortcomings while watching the screen and believing in the ideas movies sold them about breaking free from the banality of life. He kept going even after the owners moved out - sometimes took his girlfriend there too, releasing pent up frustrations, both verbal and otherwise. If he had to think about it really hard, though, he couldn’t say that he missed it. He liked lying out in that parking lot looking up at the stars and thinking, but the lot itself wasn’t that special.

His shoulders twitched, hunched, a chill down his back like something was coming up behind him, some gaze rising over the horizon and narrowing in on his frame. When he turned to look, he woke up with a start.

Ryuhei panted a little as he sat up and looked out into the dark. It was pitch black, with only a faint light from the moon coming through the window at the other end. He had no idea how long he had been asleep.

When his eyes adjusted, he could make out the frame standing next to him, peering over at him in the cot. He let out a yell and scooted back, about to jump up. “What the hell are you doing?” He immediately put his hand into his back pocket, making sure his wallet was still there and that his last $10 was too.

“You were fussing like a baby,” Yokoyama shouted back, indignant. “You looked cold so I brought you a blanket.” He threw it and it hit Ryuhei in the chest. “Geez.”

Ryuhei failed to find words of gratitude, still blinking in confusion.

“I won’t do it again,” Yokoyama yelled, shuffling back to his own bed.

  


***

  
The first thing Yokoyama suggested the next morning was, “Want coffee?”

Ryuhei’s stomach grumbled in answer - _and other things, please_ \- but coffee was a nice start. At first he sat there, rubbing his eyes, wondering how one would run a coffee pot in an abandoned building and why he couldn’t smell anything brewing.

“Put your shoes on,” Yokoyama finally said.

They headed to a place that was about a half-hour walk away. Yokoyama had heard that the coffee there was good - he wasn’t sure, he had never been himself. Ryuhei couldn’t imagine who was giving him tips on where to dine.

And he couldn’t ask either. He had always found it easier to fill the gap between himself and another person with noise, even if it was pointless noise. Silence was kind of painful; he couldn’t think of anyone he knew well enough to be comfortably silent with. Yokoyama didn’t seem to have the same problem - as they walked along, he never offered any explanations or asked any questions. He just kept going, only pausing to check a few change returns on the payphones lined up down one of the streets.

And when Ryuhei tried to think of questions to ask instead, the effort died in his chest. For Yokoyama, his silence was the rent, so he begrudgingly paid.

Besides, he was starting to think that Yokoyama only really spoke when he was trying to get something.

So instead, Ryuhei paid attention to the people passing by. He smiled at them, nodded sometimes. He said hello if they seemed receptive to it. A good number returned the gesture.

Most people didn’t seem to even notice Yokoyama.

“Here we go,” he finally said to Ryuhei, pulling him into a doorway. Without much word they sat down at a table. Without much word, they both ordered coffee - though Ryuhei did tell the waitress good morning as charmingly as he could in a vain attempt to get pity bacon. Without much word, they drank for a bit, with Yokoyama occasionally clearing this throat.

Ryuhei spent his time watching the waitresses longingly and eyeing the door to the kitchen. And trying to ignore the thought that they would have probably paid more attention to him - and he’d be less hungry - if he’d only take off his hat and swap it for one of their aprons.

“Give me a $20,” Yokoyama finally said once the bill came, absently slapping him on the arm and watching the cashier at the counter.

“Sure.”

Yokoyama held out his hand without looking - still focused on the kid at the till. He bounced his arm and then started moving his fingers and when his patience was at an end a few seconds later, he turned back to his companion to see what was taking so long. “What the hell?”

Ryuhei had his wallet out, open for him to see in. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“$10? Really?”

“Yeah.”

Yokoyama grabbed it and stood up. “That’ll work.”

“Wait, You,” he called out, as quietly as he could. “You!”

At the counter, Yokoyama waited until everyone else around had paid and walked away before he placed their bill, face down, next to the cashier. “Oh, okay,” he replied when the young man there told him the total was $1.69; he pulled a $5 out of his pocket, glancing back to make sure the cook was still far enough away at the grill. The kid nodded in response and when he had the cash register open, picking through the coins first, Yokoyama quickly coughed and went to work.

“Do you think you could do me a favor?” he asked. “While you’ve got the drawer open, can you change a $10 for me?”

“Sure,” the kid said, fingers still in the pennies.

“I need it in really specific ways,” he continued. “You gotta have exact change, right? Carrying a $10 around is a pain. Is that alright?”

“Yeah sure,” he answered, pulling up a quarter.

“I need a $5, 4 one-dollar bills, 50 in quarters, 4 dimes and 10 in nickels,” Yokoyama replied, quickly and mumbling the words slightly.

The kid paused, still trying to count out the change from the bill. Yokoyama smiled - bingo.

“Okay,” the kid replied, putting $3.31 on the counter. “You need...a $5...4...”

“4 ones, 2 quarters, 30 in dimes and 20 in nickels.” He paused, and watched. “You know what, I don’t need nickels - all of that in dimes.”

The kid nodded and started repeating the line to himself as he continued to count out coins. With his eyes glued on the drawer, he never saw Yokoyama slide the $3.31 off of the counter and into his pocket.

“You know what,” he said, interrupting again, “dimes are kind of a pain, can you just make that last one all quarters?”

The kid already had four dimes in hand.

“Sorry, that’s okay, dimes are fine,” Yokoyama started. “It’s a bunch of small coins that fall through your pockets easily, but that’s okay, I’m sure I can use them somehow. I’ll just take them and hope I don’t lose them on the way home.”

“No, it’s fine,” the kid started in, panicking. “Quarters are okay. Here you go.” He put the money down, counting it as he went to make sure it was as exactly as asked for. “Thank you for coming by.”

Yokoyama stood in place and blinked a couple of times. “What about my change?”

“Sir?”

“My change? I paid for the coffee with a $5, remember?” He started to look agitated, sticking out his chin.

“I’m sorry, I thought I already-”

“That’s the $10, right?” he said, pointing at the pile of money between them. “You just counted it. That’s only 10 dollars.”

“Yes, but I thought you al-”

“I don’t have a receipt either. You didn’t give me the change or the receipt, apparently,” he finished.

When the kid looked back at the register, the receipt was still attached to the machine. “I’m so sorry, I’ll get it right away,” he answered, opening the drawer. “$3.31, I apologize for that.”

“It’s okay,” Yokoyama replied, pocketing the pile, the same pocket as before. He coughed and nodded. “But I’m never coming back here again.” He glanced at Ryuhei as he headed through the door and his companion jumped up to follow. When they were both outside and a little down the street, he told him, “We can’t go there back for a few days.”

Ryuhei walked along side, holding his tongue only momentarily. Now, he didn’t feel any apprehension about filling the gap of silence. “That wasn’t nice.”

“Nice?” Yokoyama choked out a laugh. “Nice? That kid should be thanking me - I _am_ nice about it.”

Ryuhei stopped walking.

“Think about it,” Yokoyama appealed to him, momentarily halting as well to look him in the eyes. “He’s young, he’s new, he’ll find he’s short at the end of the day and he’ll pay attention from now on.”

“He’ll get in trouble.”

“There are a lot of people who would take him for more than a buck fifty."

"Three."

"Whatever," Yokoyama continued. “It's still less than most and now they won’t have a chance because I gave him a warning. He should thank me.” He started walking again, grumbling, “You’re the one who wants people to pay you for something they could get for free. He should thank me and you should thank me too - that would have been a lot easier if you had a $20.”

“Ah.” Ryuhei instinctively put his hand to his pocket and moved to catch up. “Wait a minute. About that.”

“I’m not handing you money on the street.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding. “Thank you.”

Yokoyama stumbled slightly. “What?”

“You said I should thank you.”

Yokoyama replied with an expression that mixed discomfort with incredulity. They went back to silence for the span of a block before he couldn’t take it any longer. “It’s only fair, too. It’s just leveling the playing field - fate kicked me into a ditch, so what am I supposed to do? Get a job?”

Ryuhei chewed on his lip slightly, wondering how exactly he ended up envying waitresses. “Maybe.”

“No thanks,” he replied. “I _had_ a job. Who’s going to hire me anyway, huh? I quit school as a kid and the only people who would take me then didn’t want me after my leg got messed up, and that was a while ago. It doesn’t work that way. And who’s going to hire you, anyway, do you have any skills?”

“Not really.” Before Yokoyama could jump on his reply with a comment about his failed efforts in his new job, Ryuhei decided to take a risk and pull at the thread that had just been exposed. “Was that in your construction job? The leg, I mean. Like an accident?”

Yokoyama took a moment before quietly answering, “Yeah.”

They went back to silence, but Ryuhei couldn’t help himself and started grinning, widely. It wasn’t the kind of news he should smile at, or would, normally. But the fact that he had gotten anything out of Yokoyama at all felt good. Maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about silences anymore.

“What are you grinning at?” Yokoyama said, catching his attention. “Fate kicked you into a ditch too.”

“Then fate owes us.”

Yokoyama coughed, rolling his eyes. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  


***

End of Part 1


	2. Midnight Cowboy (Even Cowboys Get the Blues)

“We should go south.”

Ryuhei took a moment out from watching the stop across the street to look to his left where Yokoyama was busy trying to make himself as small as possible while still standing. “South?” Winter had fully set in and while the heat of traffic and the sun-trap of asphalt sometimes made it seem warmer than it was, in the less congested sections of the city the cold was almost brutal. Most times, it wasn’t too bad for him. The jacket he had brought was thick, tough - with his long sleeve shirt and, amusingly enough, his hat, he was okay most of the time. Still, he was glad that Yokoyama had managed to hoard several blankets in the apartment over the course of his life.

As for Yokoyama, he had a harder time. His black coat was old and damaged; he had been subject to the climate of the city for far longer and was worn down from it. When they went out, he tried to stay as close to Ryuhei as possible. As he put it, sometime back in December, it only made sense to stick close to all the hot air that came out of Ryuhei’s mouth.

“Where it’s warmer,” he said.

“It’ll get warmer in a couple of months,” Ryuhei replied, turning back to the street.

“Yeah, and then it’ll get cold again. If we go south, all of our problems are solved. It’s warm and sunny there all year long.”

“You’d probably complain about how hot it was,” he chuckled, “and stay inside all the time.”

“So?” Yokoyama replied. “Fine. It’d be warm and there are a lot of rich women there. How’s that? They have enough money to go wherever they want so they go someplace warm. And they’re all bored, rich women.” He paused, feeling like he still hadn’t gone far enough. “You can’t do much here because it’s so cold that you’re bundled up all of the time, right? You need to go somewhere where you can be more visible.”

“I don’t think that’s the problem...”

“It is,” he continued. “Just imagine it. You wake up, walk outside in shorts to the pool and you have so many options you have to schedule them.”

Ryuhei did imagine it. The grey, drab sides of the street melted away to bright yellows and orange, palm trees and the feeling of sun on his skin.

“And I’ll be at the bar ordering food on your tab.”

He looked over to his left. Yokoyama was by the pool-side bar, under about three different umbrellas, with a sandwich in hand and at least four more on the table next to him. He was drinking and smiling and was a better shade of pale. The smell of sun baking bodies lingered in the air and it made Ryuhei turn his attention back to girls by the pool. Some were older, some had obviously been there for a while; all of them were interested in him and they had their purses ready. And he was free to take a step forward and fall straight into the crystal blue pool before him, weightless. He came up for air and pushed his wet hair back off of his face. The clients were looking, with winks and fingers that said come here and discreet peeks over designer sunglasses. He turned to smile and make a signal back at Yokoyama - to make sure he had what he needed, to see if he was laughing at how clumsy the jump into the pool had been, to wade over and sit down and start on lunch together - but he was gone.

“There’s one.”

Ryuhei snapped out of the warm fantasy, and back into near freezing reality, as Yokoyama poked him in the arm. Across the street, a well-enough dressed man walked up to the stop and started to read the morning’s paper as he waited.

“Go,” Yokoyama muttered, pushing him to start crossing the street. “You’re useless, you know that?”

Ryuhei adjusted his hat and took great strides across, as large as he comfortably could. He came toward the waiting man from the front and cleared his throat before interrupting. “Excuse me?”

The man lowered his newspaper. “Yes?”

Ryuhei flashed his brightest smile and tried his best to be charming...and distracting. “Could you help me for a minute, I’m looking for the courthouse and I’ve gotten lost.”

“The courthouse? It’s nowhere near here.”

“Really?” He laughed. “Then I really am lost.”

“Yeah, you need to go downtown for that.”

“Down...town? This is...?”

“Not downtown, look, if you can find a bus that goes-”

Ryuhei laughed again, rubbing his neck with his hand. “I’m not from around here, where would I find that- oh, hang on.” Over the shoulder of the man, he could see Yokoyama coming up behind him, slowly, pretending to be interested in other things - his best impersonation of an innocuous bum who maybe wasn’t all there. It wouldn’t take long for him to get into position. “Maybe you can show me on this,” Ryuhei continued, pulling a large folded map of the city out of his back pocket.

Before the man could say anything, he had it open and strewn out on a newspaper box next to them, leaning in with a hand on his shoulder. “Now, we’re here, right?”

“No,” the guy said, “that’s actually where you need to go. We’re all the way up here.”

“Really?” He laughed. “I was completely wrong.”

While he kept the guy preoccupied, Yokoyama moved in behind them and slid the sizable wallet out of his back pocket. He used Ryuhei as a shield as much as possible and quickly pulled out a small amount, whatever he could find without taking it all. The guy must have felt something, because he started to turn his head.

Yokoyama spun around and started to cough while Ryuhei butted in with another question. “Well, if I take the bus here, do you know how long that’ll take? I was kind of supposed to be there by noon.”

“Hm? Yeah, you should be able to make it there in plenty of time.”

Yokoyama bent over to pretend to tie his shoe and left the wallet on the ground behind them. He started to shuffle off and in the process bumped into Ryuhei’s back.

“‘xcuse you, sir,” he replied, quickly turning back to the target. “Really? That’s great. Well thank you so much, I’m really grateful.”

The man nodded.

Ryuhei took two steps in the opposite direction and stopped. “Oh, sir? Is this your wallet?” He picked it up and handed it over.

“Yes, yes it is,” the man said, taking it back.

“It looks like it might have fallen out,” Ryuhei suggested. The guy started to open the wallet to check for damages - that was his cue to leave. “Be careful with that. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!”

Five minutes later he met up with Yokoyama on a different street. “Useless, huh?” he said, smiling and sticking his chin out. “How much?”

Yokoyama held up a wad of cash that told him nothing. “Not a lot. I’m starving, let’s go by the market.”

By that point, vendors would stiffen and become extra watchful whenever the pair of them came around. Yokoyama, for years on his own, had managed to perfect the art of slipping away a piece of fruit when no one was looking. After a while, though, the sellers caught on and spread the word - watch out for the kid with the limp. When that happened, he had to find new markets.

And when Ryuhei showed up, things changed again. He was new, he looked nice, he smiled. He completely disarmed people by being as harmless as possible. And for a while they ignored that the two were always together. Then they caught on to that as well. And what made Ryuhei such an asset in the first place suddenly became a liability; he eternally looked new, fresh from out of town, dangerously green. He wasn’t hard to spot. The lack of wardrobe variety didn’t help either.

It had gotten to the point that when they arrived at a market, they could instantly tell how the day was going to go. People were in the habit of looking at each other, but few in the city _watched_ , unless they suspected something. If all eyes turned their way and stayed on them as they walked down a street, they kept going.

Sometimes they got lucky and someone new would be working at a stall - someone who hadn’t gotten word yet. Ryuhei figured that it was impossible to be recognized by everyone; they could just keep looking for new places. But Yokoyama wasn’t interested. It wasn’t worth an hour of walking just to grab one apple.

In the winter, the markets almost weren’t worth the effort at all, even the one close to where they lived. They walked through and at the end, Yokoyama spotted the last bin unguarded, the seller busy attending to something at the register. He nodded and Ryuhei purposely walked into the corner of the display.

When it was warmer, and the stacks of fruit were larger, just brushing past it could send food flying to the ground. With less to choose from, the impact had to be greater - Ryuhei hit the corner so hard that the table itself slightly turned. “I’m really sorry,” he said immediately, stooping down to pick up some of the pears that had fallen. He was blushing, with an embarrassed smile, as he quickly worked to fix the damage. “I’m so sorry.”

While he shifted the table back into place and apologized over and over for tripping, Yokoyama made sure some of the fallen fruit went unnoticed. Ryuhei tipped his hat and they carried on.

A couple of blocks down, around a corner, Yokoyama pulled out a pear and took a bite. He made a face. “Not really worth it.”

“Just a couple of months,” Ryuhei replied. “The fruit will be better in Spring.”

“Know where the fruit’s always good?” Yokoyama said, pear bits in his mouth and on his lip. “Further south.”

“Just hang on a little longer, it’ll start warming up and then you’ll be talking about how we should go north.”

Yokoyama coughed into his sleeve. “Never. I went north one time with one of my brothers on a trip and it was miserable. I’m never going back.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

He took another bite out of the pear. “Two.”

“Forget south, we could go visit your family,” Ryuhei started. “We should call one of them up, maybe move to a different-”

Yokoyama interrupted. “I don’t know their numbers.”

“Oh. How do you keep in touch with them?”

“I don’t.”

“Then how do you know how they’re doing?” Ryuhei asked.

“They’re fine. The last time I saw them they both had jobs and were doing well, so, they’re fine.”

“Then they obviously don’t know where you are,” he continued, impatience starting to show. Some people were alone by necessity - being alone by choice was simply maddening. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind - Yokoyama, right? They could still be in the same area, we could ask information.”

Yokoyama answered by taking another bite of the pear.

“Why won’t you contact them?”

“They’re fine,” Yokoyama repeated, “because I don’t. They don't need to worry about me or spend any of their money.”

Ryuhei clenched his mouth shut in obvious frustration, his usual smile flattened out in a straight line of trying to keep quiet on the matter. Yokoyama rolled his eyes and added, slightly irritated, “If we were south, I would think about it.” He took the last bite off of the pear and handed it over. “Why don’t you find someone who will actually pay you?”

Ryuhei took the cleaned off pear core in his hands, looking at it in disappointment. “I’m trying.”

Yokoyama noticed the change in tone, the expression. He kept his eyes on the ground as they walked along. “Don’t worry about it,” he finally said, pulling another pear out of his pocket and holding it out to his friend. “It’ll work out.”

The smile returned to Ryuhei’s face as he took it. “I thought you only grabbed one there for a minute.”

Yokoyama scoffed in between coughing. “Of course I picked up one for you too. I’m constantly looking out for you and this is what you think of me?”

Ryuhei laughed.

“I can’t believe you,” he said, outwardly indignant. “Of course I picked up two.”

  


***

  
A couple of weeks later, Ryuhei woke up to complete silence. The apartment was generally quiet, by default, but there was always some amount of noise. He had grown used to hearing Yokoyama scuffle around, or his persistent cough and other sounds of life, slight as they were. He was used to waking up to the sound of another person around. Waking up to an empty apartment, even though he had done it plenty of times before in his life, was decidedly unpleasant. If he strained, at best he could hear what sounded like the distant crashing of rock and metal from somewhere outside and beyond the building.

When Yokoyama came noisily trudging up the stairs, he couldn’t help but sigh in relief. He hopped out of bed and jogged out to the staircase to meet him. “Had to take a leak?”

Yokoyama shook his head.

“Oh, had to-”

“No,” he interrupted, stopping on the stairs, turning around and heading back down.

“Wait, where-”

“Go put your pants on,” Yokoyama answered.

“You-”

“And grab the razor. We’re going to the laundromat.” He paused on a stair and in an irritated tone finished with, “And stop calling me You. My name is Yokoyama. Yo. Ko. Ya-”

“The laundromat?” Ryuhei asked, taking a couple of steps down. “Why are we-”

“Because you smell,” he answered. “And you won’t make anything tonight if you reek. She’ll take one look at you and realize she could be spending her money on something better - like a hot dog.”

He hopped down a few more stairs, landing on the same level and putting a hand on Yokoyama’s shoulder. “She’ll?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? You’re working tonight.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Where do think I was? I was out on the streets in the cold,” he stopped to cough, four or five times in a row, “trying to help you out. I found her this morning.”

“That’s gre- wait, is she alive?”

Yokoyama pushed him in the shoulder. “I found out where she lives this morning. It’s nice, so go get your pants.”

Ryuhei replied by yelling, laughing and cheering. He reached over, pulled Yokoyama into a hug and shook him slightly.

Yokoyama cringed and fidgeted. “Stop it,” he coughed.

“See?” Ryuhei replied, slapping him on the back. “We don’t have to wait until Spring for our luck to change, it’s happening right now.”

“Luck? I did all the work,” Yokoyama pointed out. He coughed again. “Go put your pants on.”

Their first stop was finding a subway restroom without much traffic. Lack of water in the condemned building wasn’t too much of a problem thanks to the modern benefits of public bathrooms - that is, if they could find one. Yokoyama already had a route of places to try thanks to years of walking the city. When in doubt, a room on the first floor in their building made an emergency urinal, but it was better to spend the entire morning fishing out a public restroom than making the first floor completely uninhabitable.

Money was too important to waste on much outside of food, so they had one safety razor they used when needed - the same for other certain necessities. Yokoyama stood guard at the door while Ryuhei looked in the dingy mirror, planning his course of action. Post rush hour morning was fairly quiet, comparatively, and when someone did try to walk in, Yokoyama stood at the front of the entryway, blocking and hacking and being as unpleasant as possible. Nothing was worse than getting caught halfway through cleaning and being chased out - it had happened to them a few times before.

Ryuhei turned on the faucet and tried to shave as fast as he could without doing more damage than good. Luckily, shaving was usually the least of his worries. The next step was trickier - washing off effectively without accidentally committing indecent exposure. “Still clear?” he called out. Yokoyama didn’t answer and that was his cue to go ahead.

It was important to find a place with a stocked towel dispenser - the cheap brown paper wasn’t terribly comfortable, but made a good impromptu washcloth. Barring that, they hoped they had at least picked a place where there was plenty of toilet paper. Ryuhei tested the temp of the water, making sure it was warm enough, and then started to undo the belt on his jeans. It was easier, and safer, to go bottom up.

“Still clear?” Nothing. And so he moved on - systematically taking off clothing, hanging a piece over the dispenser, washing down and then replacing it. While his shirt was off, he dunked his head under the running faucet to take care of his hair - it was starting to get a little too shaggy. Yokoyama had a pair of cheap scissors he had picked up somewhere - if this worked out, maybe he’d think about shortening his hair, starting over again.

He switched off the faucet, slung out his hair, trying to dry it quickly with the paper towels. He grabbed his shirt and walked toward Yokoyama while buttoning. “Your turn.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “You’re working, you should use all of the soap.”

“You should have told me that before.”

“It’s fine,” Yokoyama replied, pushing him out of the doorframe. “Come on.”

If hygiene sometimes took all morning, laundry could take up an entire day or more. The problem was waiting for the right conditions and sometimes that required going to several laundromats. They could sit at a place all day waiting for that one person who’d start a load and walk away, leaving it vulnerable. And when that person did, they threw what they could into the load, letting the poor schmuck pay for the cleaning and drying, while they hung out elsewhere, hidden away. It was the hardest scam they had to run - sometimes getting clothes back after slipping them in was a little tricky.

As the sun set, Yokoyama checked over his friend one last time. “Better.”

“Yeah?”

“Better than a street hot dog, anyway,” he finished. “Let’s go. Wait, here.” He pulled a hotel sized sample bottle of mouthwash out of his pocket and handed it over.

Ryuhei smiled. “Where’d you get this?”

“You owe me big time,” was all he said in response.

Yokoyama led the way and by the time he stopped in front of a two-story building with glass doors and a softly-lit lobby with plush carpet, night had already settled in.

“What time am I supposed to meet her?” Ryuhei asked.

“What time is it now?”

“Almost 8.”

“Right now,” he answered. “She lives on the second floor, she said she’d meet you in the lobby. You know what that place is, right?” After no response, he continued, “Single sex apartments. Nice ones. So if she likes you-”

“She’ll tell her friends there,” Ryuhei finished.

“You could work the entire building,” Yokoyama added. “We could probably live off the second floor alone.”

Ryuhei tipped his hat with a smile. “I told you, our luck is changing.” He checked the street and jogged across, heading into the lobby.

Yokoyama could see him telling the front desk manager something - probably that he was supposed to meet a friend there. He could see Ryuhei smile and nod, wander the floor a bit while waiting.

He was left alone on the other side of the street, alone in the dark on the concrete. It felt like it was getting colder by the minute, the wind picking up. His face felt clammy and distant, like his head was really somewhere else, down a hall from the rest of his body. Sometimes his hearing dropped a little, squeezed out and stopped like everything else. Despite the fact that he was shivering, he could feel sweat starting to crawl down his face and he hoped that if Ryuhei had seen it earlier, he had simply written it off as sweat from running around all day.

Yokoyama shoved his hands further into his pockets, driving them down in hopes that there was some lower level he had magically missed that would insulate a little better. He looked up to the sky and would have looked at stars if there were any to see. The constriction in his chest caused him to cough and for a minute, he closed his eyes, still facing the sky, trying to catch his breath. If only he could open them again and see stars, a star, but nothing would be there.

"Please,” he whispered, closing them tighter, blocking out water before it could form. He could just tilt back a little more, fall. Let go. Surely something would catch him.

Instead, he coughed again, opening his eyes just in time to see that in the lobby, Ryuhei had found his buyer. He watched as he stood up to meet the young woman, well dressed and walking down the stairs. He watched as he spoke to her, his hands out and moving, his stance confident. And he watched as the woman slapped him across the face and yelled something.

He could see Ryuhei running towards the door, slamming into it in panic and stumbling outside toward him. But it wasn’t until he made it back across the street before realization settled in.

“Run,” Ryuhei choked out, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling.

They both headed down a street, trying to cut through open alleys as much as possible. Yokoyama did his best to keep up, blood pumping to move faster. The sound of a siren started up behind them. “She called the cops?! What did you say to her?!”

It didn't take long before he hit his limit. Yokoyama slowed down and leaned up against a building, trying his hardest to recapture his breath.

Ryuhei had kept an eye on him the entire time and walked around while his friend rested, unconsciously rubbing his right cheek with his hand where red hot flushed skin still burned. “Sorry,” he finally said. “I guess I asked the wrong girl.”

Yokoyama nodded and when he felt like he could control his breath again, he started walking down the alley. They continued on in silence and he could see Ryuhei out of the corner of his eye, right beside him and still rubbing his cheek. It grated at him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. “You did.”

And before Ryuhei could apologize, he finished with, “There wasn’t one.”

He got silence in return.

Yokoyama kept his eyes on the ground. “I lied. I didn’t find anyone. I thought if you could get in with someone in a place like that - if you could get your foot in the door with one girl, then it’d work out.”

Still, silence.

“And I thought someone there _had_ to be looking for somebody - one of those girls had to be,” he finished. Yokoyama slowed his walking. “I’m sorry.”

Ryuhei laughed in response.

It irritated him. “Why are you laughing?” he spat out. “Aren’t you pissed off that I lied?”

Ryuhei shook his head. “No. You did it for a reason.” He kept walking. “And it was a really good idea, actually.”

  


***

  
The apartment complex was far from their home and without anything else to do, the pair walked along the city streets together, slowly. The temperature was still dropping, but Yokoyama couldn’t - or wouldn’t, after all that running - go any faster. Ryuhei didn’t mind.

After an hour, nearer to their own area, they saw a woman standing in the entrance to her building, smoking. Even though it was pitch black, she had on sunglasses and even though it was cold, her dress only reached mid-thigh. It was white with orange and black lining and her short boots were white, making her stand out against the red-brown brick wall.

Ryuhei noticed her as they approached. He couldn’t tell what she was looking at behind the sunglasses, but as they were about to pass her building, he heard, “Are you shitting me?”

He turned to see her drop her cigarette, stomp it out of existence, before she bounced down the stairs to block them from passing. “Are you serious? You are serious.” She looked them over and then waved them on. “You’ve got to come up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My party,” she explained. “It’s dying already. But you’re unbelievable. Come on up for a bit, maybe it’ll make things interesting again.”

“Yeah?” Ryuhei asked.

Yokoyama shook his head and kept walking. “No.”

“Hey come on,” Ryuhei said, pulling his arm. “At least it’ll be warm.”

“No.”

“We like parties,” Ryuhei said back to the woman.

“No, we don’t!”

Ryuhei pulled him along anyway and Yokoyama was pretty much helpless against the unbridled energy of an extrovert starved of group attention. Up another flight of stairs, the two walked into a smoky, hazy room with loud music and louder people, all wearing bright clothes that cut through the otherwise darkly lit room. At first Ryuhei felt like he should take off his hat and try to blend in a little more; then he realized it was a party populated by “interesting people” and his hat was probably the only reason they were in.

“Food table,” Yokoyama said, poking him in the side and heading its way.

“So,” the hostess said, watching, bemused, as Yokoyama started picking through the hors d’oeuvres, “what are you doing in the city, Cowboy?”

“Work,” he answered. “I moved here a few months ago for my job.”

“Oh really? And what do you do? Wrangle cows?”

“Sort of,” he blurted out with a smile, gritting his back teeth in lieu of cringing at the answer. He thought about it - being honest had plenty of drawbacks. But in his current company, what could it hurt? It was probably going to be the least scandalous thing they had heard all night and what he had to say didn’t seem out of place. “I sleep with women.”

“Don’t we all?”

“For money.”

Ryuhei had heard the word “titter” used a couple of times in his life, but he never really understood what it meant; despite that, he was pretty sure that what she did in response to his answer fit the definition perfectly.

“Stay a while,” she said, laughter still in her voice as she walked off to a group of people.

He had no bearing for how badly he had just screwed up, but she had told him to stick around and that was good enough. At least they could stay instead of being asked to leave.

Though, he was sort of surprised they weren’t being escorted out immediately given how much Yokoyama was pocketing the food from the table. “This stuff is really gross,” he commented when Ryuhei finally joined him.

Ryuhei picked something up, he had no idea what, and chewed on it as he watched the hostess walk over to another woman, one her age it seemed, and tapped her on the shoulder. They chatted for a moment and then the hostess pointed in his direction, whispering something to her friend.

The friend nodded. The hostess smiled and waved at him before moving on.

As the night passed by, Ryuhei and Yokoyama stayed close to the food, navigating the social waters from there. Ryuhei gladly spoke with anyone, on any topic, whether he knew anything about it or not. Yokoyama stood by, avoiding eye contact. Pretty soon they moved to an empty couch and as time clicked on, Yokoyama started to slump more and more.

Throughout the party, the hostess’ friend kept her distance. Ryuhei glanced at her periodically, noticing that she was watching every time. He guessed she was dressed fashionably, at least more sensibly than the hostess, in a thicker brown dress. In fact her hair was brown too, as well as her boots. She would smile when he caught her eye, but with closed lips.

The party started to crash again. “Let’s go,” Yokoyama said.

Ryuhei looked over at him to agree, but instead told him, “You’re sweating a lot.”

“It’s hot in here,” he muttered.

“I’m sweating a lot too,” Ryuhei answered, laughing and using his sleeve to rub his neck. “Yeah, let’s go.”

They were out of the apartment and down a couple of stairs before the door opened behind them and the woman in brown slipped out with a, “Hey, Cowboy.”

Ryuhei turned to look; but Yokoyama didn’t. “I’m going home,” he said, sliding his bad leg down the next step.

“My friend tells me you’re in a very particular career field,” she continued. She paused. “I might be interested.”

“Really?”

“What are doing tonight?”

“Nothing, but I-” He looked over at Yokoyama, still working his way down the stairs. “I was on my way home.”

“Then why don’t you come with me?” she asked, smiling this time with her teeth showing.

“Go,” Yokoyama called from below.

“Then it’s settled,” she said.

Ryuhei was about to nod, take the few stairs back up to where she stood - for what reason he didn’t know, but it seemed like he should have been at least next to her - when a noise caught his attention: the sound of Yokoyama sliding off his footing and crashing onto the floor half a staircase down.

He bolted down to pick up his friend, grabbing him first by the coat and then by the sides. “Hey, you okay?” he asked.

Yokoyama looked slack-jawed, sweat glistening on his face and his eyes unfocused. It took him a moment before he answered, “Of course.”

“You’re really sweating now,” Ryuhei commented, standing him up. Yokoyama’s legs weren’t quite ready and he had to lean to stay somewhat upright. Ryuhei took the tail of his shirt and lifted it, using the underside of it to mop the sweat off of his friend’s brow.

Yokoyama went from leaning to holding on; he grabbed Ryuhei by the waist, grip light, and pushed his head forward until his forehead rested against the exposed skin of Ryuhei’s torso. It felt good against his fever - even though Ryuhei's body was warm, it was somehow cooler than Yokoyama’s face.

Ryuhei continued to wipe what he could off of his head, neck. He kept one hand on his shoulder to make sure he stayed up.

“Let go,” Yokoyama pouted, quietly and without much effort. He stood back up and after holding in a cough, grimaced. “Get off of me.”

“You okay?” he repeated.

Yokoyama pushed. “I said I was.” He pointed. “Bad leg, remember? It happens, you know.”

“Is your friend okay?” the woman called from the top of the stairs.

“I’m fine,” Yokoyama announced. “I’m going home, now.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ryuhei started.

“No you won’t.”

“I’ll just ask if I can meet her again later.”

“No, you won’t,” Yokoyama replied, pushing his hand away. “Go. I’m fine. It’s not that far, I’ll just go home.”

“But-”

“I used to do it all the time without you,” he replied. “Go. I want to eat tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

“Three times,” he finished. “Go.” Yokoyama walked out of the door.

Ryuhei stood there for a moment, unsure in which direction to move.

“Everything okay?” the woman called.

“Yeah,” he answered. He turned back to her. “He has a bad leg.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied. “Shall we go?”

  


***

  
Her place was nice - there was actual light and her floors were clean and her furniture looked too expensive to sit in, a stark contrast to the ripped open chairs he was used to. It had almost been too long since he had been in a normal apartment. Everything was as it should have been, but it almost seemed wrong to him.

“Do you want anything?” she asked, setting her coat down on one chair and then taking his jacket.

“No, thanks,” he said quietly, still looking around the room.

“Straight to the chase, then?”

Taking off clothes came naturally. Human contact came naturally. He liked the feel of her hand on his chest and shoulder and back, pulling him down, and he liked the feel of bare skin on smoother bare skin, arm sliding up the outside of her thigh, and he loved the way things felt rubbed across his lips - flesh, her lips or otherwise.

He could feel his blood sinking out of his face and chest, flooding down toward his crotch with all of its heat in tow. And yet...nothing.

He could feel the contact of her sweat, collecting on her face and smearing on his own as they kissed. And yet...nothing.

She touched all the right spots, every single one - he could tell that it felt good, that it felt wonderful. And yet...nothing.

Like a horse stalling in the gate, everything was primed to go but in vain. He pulled back off of her bed and stood up, rubbing his hand through his hair. He wasn’t in the habit of having to wait for his body to respond to his whims. Nothing. He was starting to get cold standing there limp in front of her.

“You must be tired,” she said, rolling over and turning off the lamp by the bed. “I am too.”

“Sorry,” he started.

“Boring parties do that to you,” she continued, pulling back the sheets. “You’re already here. Get in.”

He grabbed his underwear off of the floor, sliding them on en route to the other side of the bed where he hesitantly picked up the covers and crawled in next to her.

“I’m not paying you for this part,” she joked, turning her back to him.

“S-sorry,” he repeated. “You’re sure this is okay?”

“Depends on what you’re like tomorrow,” she answered. “Now shut up, I’m tired.”

He was tired. It hadn’t kicked in until he was laid out straight on his back against the mattress - a real mattress. Walking everywhere caught up with him; running everywhere caught up with him. Trying to infuse life into a dead party and trying to earn money and...

He was asleep before he could linger on the last thing that drained all his attention and energy.

In the morning, he felt the heaviness of his eyelids first and the tingling warm ache of blood surging and concentrating in one area second - a standard morning erection without any effort at all. Before he could register where he was and or why it was significant, she slipped her hand over his chest, rolling toward him and smiling.

“See?” she said. “You just needed time.”

And as he got dressed sometime later, she sat at a table in another room, her legs up and on another chair - her robe sloppily on and barely tied together. She had a bowl of cereal in front of her and her phone pressed up against her ear.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so,” she said, as he slid his boots on in the other room.

“Yeah, it was good.”

He looked around for his shirt.

“Sure. Want me to give him your number?”

It was on one of the dressers, over a corner.

“Probably. I’ll try it again next week. Oh after then? Okay.”

He walked into the other room, snapping up the shirt. She lifted the receiver end of the phone up and away from her as she mouthed, _For you_ , and slid an envelope across the table. “No that’s fine,” she continued.

Ryuhei opened it up and tried not to count in her presence.

“Is that enough?” she whispered. “What? No, no, I didn’t say anything.”

He nodded pulling out a piece of paper from behind the bills that had a phone number written on it with the words, _Thanks - next week, maybe?_ , underneath. She saw it and waved him over, taking it out of his hand and pointing for him to grab a pen from her desk.

“Yeah, I can do that.” She scribbled down another number quickly and added, _My friend - maybe the week after._ She handed it back and looked at him long enough to smile before turning her attention completely to the conversation on the phone. “Look, I really need to g- No, you didn’t tell me about that.”

He nodded in thanks, found his hat and exited as quietly as possible.

Outside, on her doorstep, he could feel the sun shining down on his shoulders and he wanted to fall to his knees in one big exhale. Finally. _Finally._ This was the start of everything.

He put the paper with the phone numbers in one pocket and the cash in the other and rushed down the street, almost jogging, trying to retrace his way back to familiar territory. He momentarily considered getting a taxi - his first taxi in almost five months of being in the city. But he already had better plans for that money.

When he finally managed to find a neighborhood he recognized, Ryuhei went into the first convenience store he found and started grabbing. Basics first - bread, eggs. Juice - he hadn’t had juice in so long. It was almost too tempting to grab more than one. He decided from there on out, every time he got paid, juice would be the first thing he would buy. Next, a couple of toiletries they were severely lacking.

And then the aisle of drugs, cold medicines, tissues - the basic care of illness. He quickly added up what he already had in his mind - it seemed like it would be okay, but he’d put the juice back if he had to. He looked at two different cough syrups, considered their differences in strength and price - and bought the more expensive one anyway. If he had earned juice, he thought, then Yokoyama had earned the best too.

It was past noon by the time he got back to their neighborhood and by then he was even whistling and singing out loud as he walked.

But when he turned the corner to their street, he stopped.

A new sound filled the air - the sound of shovels in dirt, hammers on brick, boots on concrete. A construction team was busy pulling materials out from the first building, gutting it to be bulldozed.

He nodded discreetly at the workers who caught him coming around the corner and quickly moved on, slipping by them and hoping they had already forgotten him by the time he made it to his building further down.

Ryuhei took the stairs two at a time and halfway up started calling out, “You? You! Come look what I got!” He started rambling off the list and stopped in mid-juice so as to not spoil the big surprise - “Just...come and look at this. You like eggs, right?”

He started up the third flight of stairs. “Did you see the construction crew down the street? We’re probably going to have to mov-”

At the top of the stairs, he dropped his bag.

Yokoyama was next to the door, slumped against the wall. He smiled weakly at the sight of his friend returning home.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, crouching down next to him.

Yokoyama was even paler than normal, almost grey. His face was caked in sweat, hair slicked back with it, and his eyes were cloudy, the lids barely pink. His cough was absent, instead replaced by a steady wheeze. He limply shrugged. “This seemed good enough.”

“It’s not, you’ll get cold out here,” Ryuhei replied. “Come on.”

Yokoyama blinked and looked away, blinked again. “Sure,” he mumbled quietly, moving his shoulders slightly. After a moment, “I...can’-”

“I have to do everything, right?” Ryuhei interrupted before he could finish, a somewhat forced smile on his face. “Come on,” he said, putting one arm under Yokoyama’s legs, another around his back, and lifting.

He pushed open the door and carried Yokoyama inside. He headed toward the bed and Yokoyama shook his head no. “Too much light over there.”

So he placed his friend down on his own cot.

Yokoyama looked relieved to be able to stretch out, to have something besides the wall holding him up.

“You’re shivering,” Ryuhei said, grabbing all of the blankets off of the bed to go with his own on the cot.

“It’s too hot,” Yokoyama complained. “I don’t want them.”

“Too bad,” he answered, pulling them up around his shoulders. Yokoyama didn’t put up a fight. “When you’re sick you have to stay warm. Did you hear what I got? We’re having eggs today. And I got juice - it’s all outside, I left it on the stairs.”

He jumped up to retrieve the bag and when he had reached the door, about to step out into the hallway, he heard Yokoyama say, “Ryuhei.”

He stopped.

“I can’t walk. Anymore.”

“Then I’ll just have to take you to a hospital,” Ryuhei answered, turning back to him.

“No hospitals.”

“Okay, I’ll call a doctor.”

“No doctors.”

“We can go to a clin-”

Yokoyama stared up at the ceiling and rubbed around his eyes, trying to pretend that he was just wiping sweat off of his face. “I can’t walk.”

“I’ll carry you. You’re not that bad.”

“You don’t get it,” he sighed. “I’m not going.”

Ryuhei crouched down next to him, starting to feel a little frustrated. “Why not?”

“Because then I’ll die.”

“No you won’t,” he assured him. “They’ve got medications and things that’ll make you better.”

Yokoyama turned his head to look him in the eyes. “Don’t you understand?” His voice almost cracked and he took a moment to breath, fighting the urge to cough. “They’ll tell me I’m dying and then I’ll die.” He closed his eyes tightly for a moment. “They’ll tell me the truth.”

“You just need to sleep,” Ryuhei replied. “I think I saw a skillet here earlier - I’ll use a bunch of the candles and make eggs.”

“You idiot,” Yokoyama exhaled, looking back up at the ceiling.

“It’ll work. You like eggs right?” Ryuhei busied himself getting the bag from the stairs and looking around the collected junk for anything that would pass as plates and a pan. He listened to the wheezing as he did and soon it slowed down, evened out. He quietly went to the bedside and looked over. Yokoyama was still sweating and washed out, even the color of his lips had faded.

He unconsciously reached into his right pocket, pulling out the remaining money. When he realized, he quickly counted through it. Even by gross underestimation, it wasn’t enough. Not even close.

So he reached into his left pocket and found the phone numbers.

  


***

  
He tried both - neither picked up. He couldn’t remember how to get back to her place and ask in person either.

So Ryuhei went everywhere he could think of - back on the streets where he had tried to interest rich, bored wives. The porno cinemas, regardless of who was there. He eventually made his way back to the diner where he first met Yokoyama. Nothing. Up and down the streets, running himself ragged until the sun set and the neon suns of the night came out, painting everything in reds, pinks, greens and blues.

Before he left the diner, he tried one last ditch attempt. “There’s a guy who used to come in here a lot,” he said to waiter at the counter. “Pale, black hair, busted leg?”

The guy snorted. “You? Does he owe you money?”

“Do you remember a guy who used to get into fights with him?”

“That doesn’t really narrow it down.”

“Regular here, maybe wore a feathered boa sometimes?” he tried.

The waiter paused, clearing his throat. “Try down the street.”

When Ryuhei caught up with the guy, he was sitting at a counter talking away. “Hey,” he said, pushing him in the shoulder.

“Wha-? ...Cowboy? You lasted this long, huh?”

“I need money,” Ryuhei said.

“So do I, what’s your point?” He turned away.

“Please.”

The other man paused, sighing in annoyance while looking at his drink. “Fine. Do you mind guys?”

“I don’t care - I just need money.”

“Try the arcade around 7th.”

At the arcade, Ryuhei momentarily considered that he had been tricked. It hardly seemed like a place to proposition for sex. He was running out of energy - and time - but he decided if nothing else, he could at least rest for a little bit.

The inside was brighter and more garish than the outside, with the noise of a hundred machines chiming out in disharmony. It was scarcely populated and the people who were there seemed genuinely interested in their games. He was about to leave when a middle-aged man approached him, a hat covering his bald head and a pleasant smile masking his round face. “Are you playing this game?”

Ryuhei looked at the machine he was leaning against. “Oh, sorry, no.”

“Do you like games?” the man asked. “I like them. It’s nice to find an arcade when you’re traveling - no matter where you go, it’s the same games. They travel with you. I’m in town for a convention.”

Ryuhei was about to walk away when the older man smiled at him and asked, “Do you like company for dinner? It’s a business convention. I hate eating alone.”

“I don’t have time for dinner,” he replied.

“Do you have time for anything else?” the man asked.

Ryuhei paused. “It’ll cost you.”

“As long as I’m not alone.”

He followed the older man out of the arcade and to his cheap hotel around the corner. They walked in silence and Ryuhei spent his time trying to figure out numbers, to hit upon just the right amount needed.

“Here we go,” the man said, opening up his hotel room. He nervously looked around before pulling it open wide enough for them both to walk in. And before he shut it, he looked around once more.

Ryuhei threw his hat on the bed and started to undo his belt. “What did you have in mind?”

“Actually...”

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” he continued, unzipping his fly. “But I’m in kind of a hurry.”

The older man sat down on the bed in front of him and watched him. But before Ryuhei started to slide his jeans off, he put up his hand to signal a halt. “Actually. I think I’ve had a change of heart.”

“What?” Ryuhei barely managed to say, pushing his jeans down a little more. “No, I’m-”

“This is wrong and I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“No, no you can’t ask that,” he started.

“It’s not too late, I haven’t done anything,” the older man said, reaching across the bed to the nightside table.

Ryuhei thought he was trying to pick up the phone, but instead he opened the top drawer of the stand. Inside, his wallet. “I’m sorry,” he said, sincerely. “You’ll still have to pay for bringing me here.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

In Ryuhei’s mind, he could hear the wheezing breath of Yokoyama, slowing until it stopped. He grabbed for the wallet, holding it up and finding more than enough in cash inside. “I’m really sorry,” he said, “I need this, I have to take this.”

The middle-aged man saw his wallet in the hands of a thief and picked the lamp off of the table to defend his property. He took a swing and hit Ryuhei on the side of the head with it, causing him to stumble back. He grabbed the wallet and tried to pull it away.

“You don’t understand,” Ryuhei started. He let go of the wallet with one hand to rub the side of his head, check for blood. He had to hold up his arm to block off another swing. The older man struck again, trying the break the ceramic against him. “I’ll pay you back!”

A fourth swing, a fifth. The man was striking faster and more violently. Ryuhei could feel the side of the lamp break off and cut into his skin. He wasn’t letting go of his grip on the wallet and it only invited harder swings. Out of sheer frustration, he blocked one with his hand and grabbed the lamp, pulling it away, and in the same movement, he slung it down to force the other man off of him.

It connected with his jaw with a smack and breaking of bone, blood spurting out of the older man’s lip. A snap crackled out in the air, a snap Ryuhei heard and felt in his head - and without thinking he struck again.

The man wouldn’t let go, not even to hold up his hands in defense. Ryuhei tossed the lamp to the side. The man took the opportunity to launch another attack. Ryuhei let go of the wallet and wrapped his fingers around the man’s throat and started to squeeze.

He was panting and his arms shaking to the point that he had no idea how hard his grip was. In one moment he was choking out all of his frustrations, gladly. In the next he pulled back, unable to catch his breath, disgusted and feeling nauseous, terrified, unsure of what had happened. The attacks had stopped - the struggling had stopped. The man’s limbs went limp. There was blood spattered across the bed, pooling off of the man’s face in waves through shallowed breaths.

“I’m sorry,” Ryuhei choked out. He quickly redid his belt, grabbed his hat off of the bed. He pulled all of the cash out of the wallet and set it down on the nightstand. Before he left, he used the phone to dial the emergency number, his finger trembling with the tingling warm ache of too much blood rushing to his hands. He left the phone off the hook and ran out of the room.

When he made it back to Yokoyama, he was still shaking and out of breath. He quickly found a candle, their last one, and took it to the cot. “Come on,” he said.

Yokoyama squinted in the dim light, barely able to refuse. “Please, don’t.”

“Come on,” he repeated. “I’m not taking you to the hospital.”

  


***

  
Two days. Two days, Ryuhei told him. In one day they’d be halfway there - if he just waited one more...

When he picked Yokoyama up, he grabbed at least two of the blankets, wrapping them around his shoulders. The blankets probably smelled, but he couldn’t tell and he didn’t care.

They were on the last seat of the bus, the very back, where most people didn’t want to be. With the blankets wrapped around him, Yokoyama only moved to breathe and to shift between leaning against the window and leaning against Ryuhei. For the first couple of hours, he was mostly in and out - he would wake up to switch positions and then fall back asleep.

When Yokoyama leaned to his left, Ryuhei would slouch in his seat to make sure his shoulder was at the right height to cushion his head. He could feel the sweat off of his face soaking through the sleeve of his shirt. When he could tell that his friend was awake, he’d start talking, talking about anything he could think about.

“I’ll get some change when we get there,” he said. “And then we can call information and you can find your brothers’ numbers. They’ll be really impressed, right? You’re living down at the beach! I’d be impressed. Ah, it’s warm where I’m from too. And the food’s great, they have this thing- well. Maybe we should have gone there. That’s okay, next time, right? We’ll be rich soon so we can go anywhere. Right? You?” He looked over. “Yokoyama?”

Yokoyama had fallen asleep again. It was peaceful - no coughing, no hacking, no wheezing. The constant noise from his lungs had become so standard that the absence actually scared Ryuhei more.

“Next time,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat.

The first day, that’s how it went. A continuous cycle of impromptu conversations, suddenly left off, and shifts in place. He fell asleep for a little bit, maybe an hour or two, accidentally nodding off and leaning back against Yokoyama. When the bus stopped for meal breaks, he was too afraid to move. Yokoyama was still asleep during both. He was afraid that he if got up, it would wake him - or worse yet, he’d wake up while he was out and find himself alone, an empty seat beside him.

Ryuhei started singing to himself, softly, to the pass the hours - to keep his mind off of any pressing needs. And when night came and the bus continued on in the dark, he shut up completely so he could listen to the steadiness of Yokoyama’s breath.

One more day.

In the morning, he heard Yokoyama grumble, “Shit.” He looked better - still pale, washed out, still slicked back with sweat. But his eyes were more open, more awake. He wasn’t leaning so much and the fact that he had spoken unprovoked excited Ryuhei so much that he momentarily forgot that what had been said was a curse chewed out of frustration.

It was hard to be picky with their living situation, so he had grown used to not smelling the best every day. And over night he had grown accustomed to the smell of Yokoyama’s disease - but this was unmistakable and it hit him a few seconds later. He settled back, ignoring it - and the feel - content to save Yokoyama’s dignity with silence while everything else was failing. But the way he stiffened in response was unmistakable, too.

Yokoyama avoided eye contact, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Then, Ryuhei started laughing.

“It’s not funny,” he muttered.

“Did I tell you when I was nineteen I accidentally locked myself in a shed?”

Yokoyama let out a soft sigh.

“I did. I was at my job and they told me to get something out of the storage shed, but I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and forgot to prop open the door with the block they had. I didn’t have a key and I guess no one thought about it - the guy that told me to go out there left early I think. Anyway, I was in there for a couple of hours and I had to go so bad. I couldn’t take it anymore, but I thought if I just went in the corner or something, they’d fire me. There were buckets out there, I could have used one of those - or just used the corner and cleaned up later, maybe. But I didn’t want to get fired so I just peed my pants. And about two minutes later, someone came out to the shed and found me with my pants soaked and I had to go back to work like that. If I had just waited five more minutes... They ended up firing me a week later anyway because I slept through work the next day.”

“That’s not funny,” Yokoyama said with a half-smile.

“It’s terrible, right?” Ryuhei laughed back. “Not funny at all. Hey, did I tell you the first girl who tried to give me a blow job threw up in the toilet for an hour after?”

He chuckled softly. “You’re a mess.”

“Yeah,” he replied, smiling. “I am.”

The bus pulled off to the side and the driver got on the intercom to announce the next meal break. All passengers were to report back in half an hour. Ryuhei waited until everyone filed out. “Hang on, I’ve got some leftover money. I’ll be right back,” he told Yokoyama as he stood up, pushing one of the blankets that had somehow migrated to his lap off to the side.

“Where’d you get the money?” Yokoyama asked before he could leave.

“...don’t ask, okay?”

Yokoyama nodded.

Ryuhei walked the long line to the front of the bus, stopping by the driver who was patiently waiting for him to leave so he could lock the door. “He’ll be okay there,” he explained, pointing to the back. “Just a little motion sick.”

The driver shrugged and followed him off the bus. “I’ll open the doors again in fifteen minutes after I get lunch.”

“Thanks.” Ryuhei checked the traffic and crossed the street. There were several restaurants, quick diners, lined up next to each other, amongst other shops. He jogged down the line, scanning inside through the display windows until he found a place that had clothes.

He was sweating. Not from worry or jogging, but from the pure heat. They had made it down far enough that his clothes no longer suited the climate. It was too hot in the long sleeve shirt and jacket. It was time for a change, anyway.

He grabbed the first shirts he could find that looked like they would fit. He was pretty sure Yokoyama could wear anything he could and grabbed pants in his size too.

“Do you want to try those on?” the attendant asked.

“I guess I better,” he answered. In the dressing room, he took his hat off and for the last time, unsnapped the front of that long sleeved shirt.

He was back at the bus in eighteen minutes. The driver kept his promise and was in his seat, eating a wrapped sandwich. No one else had come back yet.

“Here we go,” Ryuhei announced, taking the new set of clothes to Yokoyama. He had already changed into his new shirt and threw the old one, wadded up, on to the end of the seat where his jacket was. He glanced back at the driver, who was facing the street still working on his sandwich. “I hope you like white,” he told Yokoyama.

“Not really.”

He smiled as he pulled the blanket off, dropping it on the floor. Yokoyama sat up, leaned forward and put his arms up. He had a hard time staying that way, running out of the energy necessary to keep his limbs from dropping. Ryuhei pulled the shirt off over his head, threw it on the blanket, and shook out the new one.

And when he had finished with that, he shook out a pair of khakis.

“No,” Yokoyama warned. “Not...don’t...”

“Hold still,” Ryuhei warned, starting to undo his belt and unbuttoning the waistband. “Lean forward,” he said, taking Yokoyama’s shoulders in one arm and using the other to pull down the black pants. While he worked quickly to change the rest of the clothes, Yokoyama grimaced in embarrassment and then looked down at his hair and asked, “Where’s your hat?”

“Hm?” He finished buttoning the new pants, looking for the belt. “My-?” He reached up to his head and realized it was gone. He chuckled. “I don’t know - I must have left it there. There we go.”

He gathered up the old clothes and the worn out blankets and left the bus again to toss them in the nearest trashcan. When he got back on, the other passengers had started to return and were taking their seats.

“Feel better?” he asked, sitting back down next to Yokoyama.

“I guess.” He repositioned himself so he could lean his back against the window and look at his friend without moving his head too much. “You didn’t want anything to eat?”

“Nah,” Ryuhei lied. “These are nice right? They’ll be better in the warmer weather. I look okay, right? What about you, do you want something? I can still get something if you wa-”

Yokoyama shook his head slightly. “I’m not hungry.”

“Oh, okay.” Ryuhei slid back in the seat and watched as the driver at the front closed the door and made a head count. He tried to secretly chew on his lip, closed his eyes tightly with a deep breath, and then ended up smiling at Yokoyama instead. “Just a couple of hours. We’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

The bus started up again and Ryuhei found himself silent. No grand plans about what they were going to do next, no songs, no barrage of questions. He opened his mouth to say something and nothing came out. He looked over to his right and in response, Yokoyama gave another tired half-smile.

He nodded. The tension in his shoulders relaxed a little and for several minutes, they just sat there - both awake but not saying anything. Ryuhei didn’t feel any panic or a crushing responsibility to keep up conversation. He knew Yokoyama well enough that he was okay with being quiet in his presence.

He leaned his head back and looked over to see Yokoyama repositioning himself again to sit by his side. Ryuhei took a deep breath and before he knew it, he fell asleep.

He woke up, leaning against Yokoyama. Something had jerked him awake, but he couldn’t figure out what. Maybe they had hit a pothole or one of the kids on the bus had screamed. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and started to feel uneasy when he realized that what had lulled him to sleep in the first place had now stopped.

Yokoyama’s chest wasn’t moving. There was no breath going in and out. The sweat on his face was gone. His eyes were closed and it almost looked like he was still smiling.

“Yokoyama? Yoko?” He asked, pulling at his sleeve and then shaking his shoulder. “Kimitaka?”

“Kimit-” He stopped himself, turning to look at the seats before him, hoping no one had heard.

Nothing changed. Nothing happened. He nodded and made his way to the front of the bus. He whispered something in the driver’s ear and soon they were stopped, pulled over on the side of the road.

Every pair of eyes of focused on him and followed, with turned heads and bodies, as he and the driver walked back to Yokoyama. The driver looked for a minute, pretended to feel his forehead and declared as loudly as he could, “Yep, that’s motion sickness.” He put a hand on Ryuhei’s shoulder. “We’ll be there in half an hour, just stay behind on the bus,” he said quietly before returning to the wheel.

Ryuhei sat down, Yokoyama's body next to him. As the bus started back up, he noticed the gaze of the passengers on him, looking away only momentarily. They started to talk to each other, whisper ideas as they watched. They all noticed. They acknowledged him and they all acknowledged Yokoyama. For once, every single person acknowledged Yokoyama.

He slunk down in his seat, hunching his shoulders forward, looking over his friend. He slid his arm behind Yokoyama’s head and neck, putting it around him and holding him. He pulled him as close as he could and tried to use his own body to block out the glares of the passengers. They weren’t allowed to see now - see and judge. They had missed that chance.

He held on protectively, only looking away from his friend to momentarily glance out the window and notice the palm trees, fronds blowing around caught in a stream of wind, as they passed by. One more half-hour and it was taking forever. Thankfully. Unfortunately. He pulled his friend closer and closed his eyes, brows furrowed, starting to gasp and refusing to look at anything else.


End file.
